


Codas

by TheDameintheRaininMaine



Category: Arrival (2016)
Genre: Distant Finale, F/M, Future, Questions, Reunion, living non-linearly when no one else does
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:32:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9091552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDameintheRaininMaine/pseuds/TheDameintheRaininMaine
Summary: Years later, Ian asks her again, about endings this time.





	

He comes back to her years later when there is a bit of grey peeking through in her bright hair. It’s the anniversary. Not theirs, the one they both remember. Fresh flowers are on Hannah’s grave even as rain wears on the writing on her headstone. 

The day he comes back is as present to her as the day he left, and they day they married. 

She still lets out a breath of relief into the cold fall air. It’s gray, and drizzly, like most days in October, and the clouds in the sky show no signs of breaking. 

Ian’s face is a bit more wrinkled, but as kind as ever. 

She doesn’t say “I knew you’d come”, or “It’s been so long”, both of which are accurate, but neither of which come to her at the moment. 

What does come from her mouth is “It’s good to see you”. She’s being honest. 

What comes next is “Would you like some tea?”. 

He’s teaching now, having finally come around to the quieter life that agrees more with the aches of age. Louise’s book has provided her more than a bit of notoriety, but she too chooses to remain out of the public eye. The lecture circuit is an occasional diversion, and she continues her own research of course, but her life too, has begun to settle itself. 

Many cups of tea later, and one or two of wine, Ian finally asks. 

“Why didn’t you fight me when I left?”

She doesn’t say “because I knew you’d come back” even though part of her still counted the days one by one. 

She instead says, 

“Because I couldn’t make you understand”. 

“Then make me now”. 

Louise sighs. This has come up now and then when people who have read her book talk about her experiences. Certain parts of being human it seems, have begun to elude her. One day at a time, they say, she can’t. It’s all days, all the time. 

“You would count the days. The days we had left. The days she had left. I don’t have to, they are all present to me. You would watch her slowly slip away, out of your hands.”

There are tears in his eyes. Some are threatening to spill out of hers too. 

“If I had told you then, I might as well have taken her away from you at the very start.” 

She wipes away the tears. 

“I guess there’s a reason mortal beings don’t know their fates”. 

The rain is coming down harder now, and it’s getting dark. The only light in the house the yellow-gold glow from her lamps. The damp air makes the smell of the wood more prevalent. 

She says, “You should stay the night”. 

She knows he will, but somehow the wait for him to answer is still agonizing. She can see her own decisions for what they are, somehow his still feel like a wild card to her. Wild enough to hurt.

Louise has come to understand over her years since the Heptapods, the difference between a foregone conclusion that is forced, inevitable, unchangeable, and one that was going to happen because it’s natural, meant to be. When Ian retrieves her favorite plaid blanket from it’s usual spot, she fully grasps onto this as one of the latter. 

His lips still fit at the hollow of her throat, and though age has touched both of their bodies, they still fit together as they did before, the movements as familiar as before. 

Afterward, Louise quietly whispers, “I missed you”. 

“Wasn’t sure you could miss things still” he says, sleepily, with only a touch of resentment. 

She tucks herself into his side. 

“All those bad days, I still had to live them. Painful days aren’t less painful. I just know that the good days are worth it to get through them”. 

“Is this a good day?” he asks, but dozes off before she can answer him. 

The rain has broken by the morning. The sun is peeking between the clouds, lighting up the puddles and rain on the ground. They watch from her porch, across over to the water, mugs of coffee to stave off the chill in the post-storm air. 

Ian asks, “Do you ever think about endings now? Wonder where that part of your story begins?”

“In music, the last section of a work is generally called a coda, from the Latin for tail. Literature would sometimes call it an epilogue.” 

“Never cared for epilogues. Always wrapped things up too neatly for me” he says. He looks over at her. He wears his glasses more now, and right now their slipping off his nose. 

“Does it feel like you’ve skipped to the end? Read your life’s epilogue before the rest?”

Louise was a stickler sometimes. Her mother would do that, skip to the end of the book to find out what happened, who made it out alive, who stayed with who, who left who. 

She looks back at Ian, Stretched onto the wooden chair in front of the same glass door he had sat in front of so many times before. 

“It’s more like being able to read the whole book at once. “

She reaches over to grab his hand, intertwine their fingers. 

“And knowing that the beginning and middle are just as important as the end”.


End file.
